


Dissidence

by Fire_Lord_Azula



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Age Difference, Cross-Generation Relationship, Drabble, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, Family, Family Drama, Fire Nation, Flirting, Lesbian Character, Mother Complex, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Parent/Child Incest, Royalty, Secret Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Lord_Azula/pseuds/Fire_Lord_Azula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They could never come together before, torn apart through opposing polarities -- but time has a way of changing things, if you let it.  Fifty ways Azula and Ursa defy blood ties and the status quo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These aren’t in sequential order, instead highlighting various scenarios and runaway thoughts. There are definitely mature themes to be had, given the subject matter, and the involvement between the two characters suffers no ambiguity.

**#01 - Motion**  
Content to unwind for the evening and reclining on the bed in only a thin negligee, Ursa started in place when her daughter interpreted the movement to be far more suggestive than intended.

 **#02 - Cool**  
Sweat beaded the girl’s brow, condensing into wisps of steam: a Firebending mechanism necessitated by the heat generated between their clothed bodies.

 **#03 - Young**  
Ursa could remember with clarity days long past, when babyhood left her second-born too frail to scald with words and flames; and while Azula wasn’t yet an adult in the present, her bearing was decidedly beyond her years, made clear through the advances and declarations of someone far older.

 **#04 - Last**  
Azula’s stamina endured the tests of time, be it on the battlefield or in the bedroom, and her mother wasn’t sure what impressed her more.

 **#05 - Wrong**  
“We shouldn’t do this,” the older Princess insisted, her plea falling on deaf ears as her daughter pinned her to cool granite, clawed fingers deftly nudging aside the obtrusive fabric from her heaving chest.

 **#06 - Gentle**  
From the cleansing of wounds incurred through bouts of rigorous training, to the removal of clothing in muted candlelight, Ursa’s touch never lacked tenderness.

 **#07 - One**  
Although she showed the necessary deference to her father, Azula never settled for second-best, not even in love -- and Ursa suddenly found herself forced to choose.

 **#08 - Thousand**  
The prodigious Princess could have her pick of the nation’s women, but winning the affections of one in particular had become a lifelong endeavor she’d see to its end.

 **#09 - King**  
Ursa had to admit the five-pronged crown suited her second child, all the while silently bemoaning the world’s fate at the hands of a teenage tyrant.

 **#10 - Learn**  
As a child, there wasn’t much Azula allowed her mother to teach her; as an adolescent, hands-on lessons renewed her interest.

 **#11 - Blur**  
When the prodigy trained, she fazed into streaks of color, the red and gold and black of Agni Kai garments a striking contrast against the cool greens of the garden -- but Ursa increasingly found appreciation in the paleness of exposed shoulders.

 **#12 - Wait**  
Ever the strategist, Azula bode her time, awaiting the day her father would soar to the tallest heights or crash in a blaze to unrecoverable depths; whatever would open the title of Fire Lord -- and, by extension, Fire Lady for her mother -- was fine with her.

 **#13 - Change**  
The older Princess couldn’t pinpoint an exact time of transition from parent and child to covert lovers; Azula had made it impossible, for her behavior had been ambiguous and riddled with inconsistencies from the beginning, all a brilliant plot to keep suspicion at bay.

 **#14 - Command**  
“Guard her with your lives,” she instructed the shaken brigade; was venturing into town to buy flowers really such a harrowing enterprise for the Dowager Fire Lady?

 **#15 - Hold**  
The way she clasped her arms around her daughter in the present varied so differently from the past; was it because she did it more frequently, or did the nature of the embrace itself shift along the way?

 **#16 - Need**  
In order to realize their greatest potential, the pair of opposites would learn the art of balance, found only through each other -- and the world would know them as unstoppable.

 **#17 - Vision**  
The diadem and robes of the Fire Lady were fashioned far in advance, without the knowledge of the acting Fire Lord, and Ursa’s secret fittings were kept confidential through threat of expulsion; even as Crown Princess, Azula had grand plans for their shared future.

 **#18 - Attention**  
The hand patting her armored thigh from beneath the dinner table left the aroma and sumptuous flavor of braised turtleduck a mere afterthought.

 **#19 - Soul**  
Never one to believe in the paranormal, the prodigy found herself at rapt attention when her mother recounted tales of great dragon spirits reborn in mortals, said to be the most proficient of benders.

 **#20 - Picture**  
Finding the crumpled portrait stashed between articles of rarely worn clothing brought a tear to her eye -- and a lump to her throat; why, exactly, did her teenage daughter have a painting of her own mother in a bathing suit worn to Ember Island?

 **#21 - Fool**  
The poor simpleton who dared to eye her mother clutched his face in agony as he writhed upon the ground; “Can’t you see she’s taken?”

 **#22 - Mad**  
Like most Firebenders, Azula had a temper, although it was considerably harder to rouse than others in her dealings; resourceful and adaptable as banishment had taught her so assiduously, Ursa learned over time the most effective ways to soothe the savage beast.

 **#23 - Child**  
No matter what happened between them, Ursa couldn’t seem to dismiss their relation, and memories of simpler days became weighted with guilt, the image of her lover as her spry, unruly little girl impossible to shake.

 **#24 - Now**  
At times a contradiction, admirably patient in one instance and utterly exacting in another, one thing remained constant: when she called for her mother, she was never left waiting.

 **#25 - Shadow**  
The true nature of their relationship was confined to their chambers, only to see the light of day through the dark of night.

 **#26 - Goodbye**  
Azula’s sendoff felt more akin to watching a husband depart for war, even though her actual husband stood at her side the entire time, fingers entwined and wholly ignorant to her thoughts.

 **#27 - Hide**  
Loathe to stow it away in some forgotten drawer, the rational side of her brain acknowledged the consequences of acting otherwise; and so it was, for her husband could never know of the firelily broach.

 **#28 - Fortune**  
Deemed lucky by her father and the nation at large, the truest test of success would come through claiming the most unattainable of prizes, the nature of which defied circumstance of birth and relation.

 **#29 - Safe**  
Tainted blood had singled her out as a target to those who knew, but Ursa feared no man or misfortune when in the presence of her powerful progeny.

 **#30 - Ghost**  
They shared a (great)-grandfather, though the younger never knew -- and Ursa hadn’t the heart to tell her -- but his presence in the prodigy’s blood manifested as an unusual and otherwise indiscernable awkwardness; Roku had never been good around pretty girls.

 **#31 - Book**  
It had always been a dream of Azula’s to see her accomplishments recounted in history’s tomes, and Ursa would do everything in her power to ensure her daughter’s glory resounded through generations to come.

 **#32 - Eye**  
At first, the stares sent her direction were unnerving, but in time, Ursa came to view them as flattering.

 **#33 - Never**  
Azula wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ be tempered, forever pitching rocks at helpless turtleducks and reinventing ways to torment her older brother; no matter how many kisses and caresses were placed upon her, Ursa couldn’t seem to get her to relinquish those nasty habits.

 **#34 - Sing**  
Lullabies were a remnant of childhood; despite that, Azula didn’t mind if it meant hearing her mother’s melodic voice.

 **#35 - Sudden**  
The announcement came at a moment’s notice: her husband hoped not only to restore her position, but elevate her to Fire Lady to stand beside him -- she couldn’t tell him the real reason she declined the latter.

 **#36 - Stop**  
Ursa hadn’t meant to elicit such a strong reaction, but the mere sight of her in the new two-piece brought a comically abrupt halt to her daughter’s prideful stride.

 **#37 - Time**  
Age had chiseled her rowdy child into a stately young heir to the Fire Throne, and that was to be expected -- what Ursa _hadn’t_ anticipated was her own surging interest in the teenager’s developing body.

 **#38 - Wash**  
To keep some semblance of normalcy amidst the pomp that came with palace life, Ursa insisted on relieving the servants of laundering her room; after some nights, it was a good thing she did.

 **#39 - Torn**  
She’d finally found happiness with her second child, but that didn’t mean she was absolved of all guilt for the ways through which it was expressed.

 **#40 - History**  
It wasn’t unheard of for Fire royalty to find companionship within the bloodline; while not condoned, it wasn’t sneered upon by the majority, accepted as more of a circumstance borne through chosen isolation... but the uncustomary union of a mother and daughter would be one for the history books.

 **#41 - Power**  
The elder Princess held sway of her own, for only she could inspire congeniality (whether real or imagined was still up for debate, but the girl could be pleasant, nonetheless) in the nation’s ferocious prodigy.

 **#42 - Bother**  
“You spend too much time with your son,” the younger Princess jeered at the fresh loaf of bread cradled in her mother’s arms like an infant.

 **#43 - God**  
Born in the auspicious Year of the Dragon and brimming with promise from her first breaths, Azula had the makings of omnipotence in human form; Ursa privately indulged herself with the fact that she, as the girl’s mother, had something to do with that greatness.

 **#44 - Wall**  
If the corridors could talk, they’d speak of forbidden liaisons between Princesses, glances and kisses exchanged before footsteps announced intruding presences.

 **#45 - Naked**  
No longer did Ursa spend the sweltering nights of summertime unclothed beneath the sheets, ‘lest she be ambushed in her sleep by desirous lips and hands.

 **#46 - Drive**  
Azula’s passion for Firebending was eclipsed only by the compulsion to be _desired_ , and Ursa, in no uncertain terms, came to grasp this.

 **#47 - Harm**  
If she could arrange for her brother’s death to look like an unquestionable accident, she would; but until then, she stilled her hand in the presence of their mother.

 **#48 - Precious**  
Bonds could evolve over time, for better or worse, but one thing that never changed was Ursa’s unwavering devotion to the monster of a girl born from her own flesh; always and forever loved, no matter how iniquitous or exasperating her child proved to be.

 **#49 - Hunger**  
The first time Azula ran her tongue along that ivory neck, she developed a craving for the sweetness of jasmine to be found upon the supple skin, and so such tea was interspersed strategically among servings of the always favored ginseng.

 **#50 - Believe**  
Azula knew she would one day reign supreme over the entire world -- and conquering her mother’s heart was to be but one conquest among immeasurable successes.


	2. Finality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They could never come together before, torn apart through opposing polarities -- but time has a way of changing things, if you let it. Fifty ways Azula and Ursa defy blood ties and the status quo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These aren’t in sequential order, instead highlighting various scenarios and runaway thoughts. There are definitely mature themes to be had, given the subject matter, and the involvement between the two characters suffers no ambiguity.

**#01 - Ring**  
How such a simplistic object could seal one’s future baffled Ursa when she thought about it; though the first proposal of her life met an irreparable brokenness, the second band to slip around her finger felt so _final_.

 **#02 - Hero**  
Far-removed from a savior in the traditional sense, it was Azula who both found and exonerated the exiled Princess while she fulfilled her banishment abroad.

 **#03 - Memory**  
The visions of the past between them desperately needed to be replaced in both their minds, of that much they easily agreed upon.

 **#04 - Box**  
What lay inside the ornate handheld container was all too apparent, as was the once unfathomable reality of the proud Fire Lord lowering herself to one knee, but all the same, Ursa couldn’t contain her gasp once the scene played out before her.

 **#05 - Run**  
Ursa’s efforts to sprint across the courtyard in her daily attire never ended well and earned a genuine bout of laughter from the normally stoic tyrant-Princess.

 **#06 - Hurricane**  
At times, her second-born was more a force of nature than a human entity, and only she possessed both the courage and gentle conviction to calm the storm.

 **#07 - Wings**  
When Azula used her Firebending to propel herself high into the air, her mother glimpsed the outline of leathery appendages inherent to the girl’s draconic ancestors giving her an added boost.

 **#08 - Cold**  
Yellow was such a warm, vibrant color, but the chill of her daughter’s dragon-gold eyes sapped the light from such cheery thoughts with every misplaced invocation.

 **#09 - Red**  
“Those drab Earth Kingdom colors never suited you,” professed her teenage child as the revered garment of her pre-banishment days was gallantly presented; Azula insisted on remaining in the room to witness the tradeoff to robes of the finest crimson silk from those spun of scratchy brown linen. 

**#10 - Drink**  
Jasmine tea was a bit too flowery for her taste -- her favorite was Uncle’s, oddly enough: ginseng -- but she swallowed down the cup with little fanfare to witness her mother’s smile.

 **#11 - Midnight**  
It was good fortune for the servants to be in bed long before the night reached its apex, for telltale noises behind private chambers held no secrets.

 **#12 - Temptation**  
“You take a risk every time you choose to wear that,” the younger girl craftily advised her senior when Ursa extricated the skimpiest of eveningwear from her closet with the excuse that “it’s too hot to wear anything else”.

 **#13 - View**  
Ursa didn’t object to being high above her surroundings -- after all, being betrothed to the nation’s mighty prodigy, she would need to get used to such a perspective.

 **#14 - Music**  
When Azula teasingly recreated a failed overture with her brother’s old tsungi horn, Ursa couldn’t contain her peals of laughter.

 **#15 - Silk**  
It was remarkable, not to mention unexpected, for such a tyrannical Princess to find the softness of her mother’s nightgown so placating as they shared the older woman’s bed.

 **#16 - Cover**  
Tables provided the perfect pretense through which to sneak a furtive caress or grope.

 **#17 - Promise**  
Wedding vows were the assurance of new beginnings.

 **#18 - Dreams**  
It was never too much to hope that her mother might give the idea of marriage a second try.

 **#19 - Candle**  
The long stalks of wax to garnish the Fire Lady’s room were lit each night before she retired; she not once reflected upon the curious gesture with anything but delight.

 **#20 - Talent**  
Azula never felt she could impress her mother with her Firebending (the woman had always been far too focused on coddling Zuko’s meager attempts) , so she resolved to display a different prowess behind closed doors.

 **#21 - Silence**  
Neither mother nor daughter had ever been adept at communicating with each other through words, and so it was that moments of utter quiet spoke the loudest between them.

 **#22 - Journey**  
Their reunion after years of bitter separation had been an adventure unto itself; what lay in store for the newly wedded Fire Lord and Lady promised the deconstruction of social taboos and perhaps the world at large ( _no one would ever accept them_ ).

 **#23 - Fire**  
Only one half of the couple possessed the blessing of their element, but all it meant was that it was far easier for the non-bending party to admire the gift objectively.

 **#24 - Strength**  
Time and time again, Azula assured her fiancee of her ability to carry her down the aisle after the exchange of vows, but her mother couldn’t get past the humorous image of being carted around by a girl who barely crested five feet tall.

 **#25 - Mask**  
Ursa always clung to a feeble shred of hope that her daughter’s coldness was only a façade; during rare moments of peace, it almost seemed the walls would give way and crack just enough to keep that dream alive.

 **#26 - Ice**  
“I finally found a way to melt the wall around your heart, didn’t I?”

 **#27 - Fall**  
One aspect she missed to living in the Earth Kingdom was the turning of the leaves on deciduous trees; with feigned reluctance, Azula scheduled at least two visits before the weather turned too cold and miserable. 

**#28 - Forgotten**  
There were times Azula scarcely recalled her relation to the magnanimous woman at her side -- it helped that they looked virtually nothing alike.

 **#29 - Dance**  
In spite of the art being placed beneath an official ban decades prior, the Fire Lady could enrapture her daughter with but a few well-timed, precisely executed movements: Azula’s favorites seemed to be those with the most hip action.

 **#30 - Body**  
Azula was far-removed from being spiritual, but there was one form she paid homage to every night.

 **#31 - Sacred**  
If the bond between parent and child was so hallowed, why had it been so easy to exchange it for another?

 **#32 - Farewells**  
Closing the chapter on one failed part of her life would open a new door, or so her daughter insisted with an odd vehemence.

 **#33 - World**  
There wouldn’t be a single sect of the new empire to not recognize the Fire Lord and Fire Lady’s union.

 **#34 - Formal**  
Even promises of midnight bliss couldn’t convince Azula to attend the gathering in anything but her gilded uniform.

 **#35 - Fever**  
It was impossible to tell if the prodigy was ill unless she otherwise sneezed fire, and it was then that Ursa was permitted to play the role of doting mother.

 **#36 - Laugh**  
Azula rarely produced joyful sounds, her chortles and snickers tinged with an ever-present undercurrent of malice -- it was with great dedication and resolve that her mother evoked the occasional chuckle devoid entirely of venom: a rare and laudable feat, indeed.

 **#37 - Lies**  
“Azula always lies,” her son once repeated as his personal mantra of assurance, but she was privately delighted to discover he was wrong.

 **#38 - Forever**  
The Fire Lord’s words were final -- if they were to march hand in hand upon scorched earth until the world’s collapse, so it would be.

 **#39 - Overwhelmed**  
Ursa couldn’t contain a giggle at the tiny puff of flame to accompany her daughter’s exhale upon the release of tension; planning a proper first date was exasperating.

 **#40 - Whisper**  
“Come to bed,” the Fire Lady’s sultry voice teased the shell of her ear, prompting her to finally lay rest to the quill tightly clenched between her fingers.

 **#41 - Wait**  
“Not yet,” came the breathy taunt as her mother bid her to delay release.

 **#42 - Talk**  
Azula never saw the point in scheduling their chats by the turtleduck pond, but she nonetheless acquiesced with a sigh each time she caved to the older woman’s whims.

 **#43 - Search**  
It most certainly wasn’t the idea of regaining a mother to fuel her wide-scale hunt for the banished Princess, but that of obtaining a wife.

 **#44 - Hope**  
“There _is_ good in you,” she’d promised despite her daughter’s careless dismissal, though as time passed, Azula wasn’t the only one to need convincing.

 **#45 - Eclipse**  
The Day of Black Sun had rendered her husband and daughter powerless beneath the veil of blackness to shroud the source of their inner flames, but even so, a mother’s -- or lover’s? -- intuition assured her Azula would not only survive, but miraculously tilt the handicap to her advantage.

 **#46 - Gravity**  
Streamers of fireworks perfectly symbolized their glorious rise to power, but unlike the fate of the dispersing sparks, they would remain perched on high.

 **#47 - Highway**  
The road to Azula’s heart was fraught with deadly twists, jolting bumps, and no shortage of acridity, but Ursa had traveled grittier paths before.

 **#48 - Unknown**  
Having boldly faced down more daunting futures in the past, Ursa had gained invaluable experience with offsetting the fear of uncertainty when it came time to face the world with the notorious conqueror of Ba Sing Se at her side.

 **#49 - Lock**  
Was it actually _necessary_ for mother and child to deadbolt their door each time they retired for bed?

 **#50 - Breathe**  
Ursa felt herself inhale sharply when her daughter recited, word for word, the same inquiry to entwine her future with the girl’s father when they were both teenagers (but the two of them had been arranged from the start, and Azula was the only teenager this time around).


End file.
